STOCKS TO WATCH: Amazon.com, AT&T, iXL Enterprises, Metricom and Next Level

Amazon.com shares will be on the rise Thursday even though it posted a wider-than-expected loss in its fourth quarter losing $185 million, or 55 cents a share, on sales of $676 million.

First Call consensus expected the online retailer to lose 48 cents a share, but many analysts were projecting a loss of between 53 cents and 58 cents a share due to a series of inventory writedowns.

In the quarter, Amazon.com took a $39 million charge for inventory reductions. On an operating basis, Amazon.com lost $175 million in the quarter.

In the quarter, its cumulative customer accounts grew by 3.8 million to more than 16.9 million. More impressive, repeat customers accounted for 73 percent of all orders in the quarter.

Company officials credited strong electronics and auction sales for the top-line surprise.

Its shares jumped to 77 in after-hours trading after closing up 2 to 69 7/16 in the regular session.

AT&T will generate interest after announcing late Wednesday that it had filed to raise as much as $100 million in an initial public offering for a tracking stock to represent its wireless services business.

The company did not say how many shares it plans to offer or in what price range in the preliminary prospectus filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Those details are expected in future filings.

The prospectus is likely a place-marker for the wireless concern as AT&T is expected to float up to 19 percent of the wireless division to the public which could raise up to $10 billion making it one of the largest IPOs in U.S. history.

With about 12 million subscribers, AT&T Wireless had about $5.5 billion in revenue and $44 million in net income for the nine-month period ended Sept. 30, the filing showed.

Its shares closed off 1 1/2 to 51 Wednesday.

iXL figures to rally after it past analysts' estimates in its fourth quarter, earning $3.8 million, or 6 cents a share, on sales of $75.1 million.

First Call consensus expected the Internet services firm to earn 5 cents a share in the quarter.

iXL shares closed off 2 9/16 to 46 13/16 ahead of the earnings report.

The $75.1 million in sales mark a 158 percent improvement from the year-ago quarter when it lost $6.6 million, or 12 cents a share, on sales of $29.1 million.

All seven analysts following the stock maintain either a "buy" or "strong buy" recommendation.

First Call consensus expects it to earn 37 cents a share in fiscal 2000.

Metricom priced its previously announced offering of senior notes Wednesday.

Company officials said it has agreed to sell $300 million principal amount of 13 percent senior notes due 2010. The company added that it did not sell any senior discount notes in the offering.

The notes were sold as units with warrants to purchase common stock of the Company. For each $1,000 principal amount of senior notes purchased, the holder will acquire a warrant to purchase 4.75 shares of common stock at an initial exercise price of $87.00 per share, which is the price at which the company priced its concurrent public offering of 5,000,000 shares of common stock.

The warrants are exercisable at any time after the six month anniversary of their date of initial issuance.

Metricom shares closed off 2 5/8 to 87 5/16 Wednesday.

The maker of equipment that delivers high-speed online services over ordinary phone lines said it had a fourth-quarter loss of 21 cents a share before compensation costs, beating an average 23-cent loss expected by five analysts polled by IBES. Next Level rose 10 7/16 to 91 7/16 at Wednesday's close.